Poll: Americans fear GOP budget cuts

Americans are concerned about the federal deficit, but 60 percent fear big budget cuts by Republicans in Congress could hurt their families, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

A narrow majority in the poll, 51 percent to 46 percent, said government should be doing more rather than that the government is doing too many things.

“The survey shows Republicans in Washington caught between powerful opposing forces: demands from the Tea Party right for spending cuts to reduce the budget deficits, and fears by crucial swing voter groups that cuts would harm them amid anxiety over the weak economy,” John Harwood of NBC News wrote in a poll summary.

The country’s social safety net remains popular with voters at large.

By a 54-to-18 margin, Americans say cuts in Medicare are not needed to curb the deficit, and by a similar spread — 49-to-22 — they feel Social Security cuts are not needed.

A 56 percent majority agreed that cuts in Head Start are “mostly” or “totally unacceptable,” while an even higher percentage, 77 percent, said likewise to cuts in primary and secondary education.

The Tea Party activists pushing to slash the federal budget are “an incredibly powerful but small ideological party of our electorate,” Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster who helped conduct the survey, told NBC News.

McInturff, a John McCain campaign adviser in 2008, added: “It is hard to understand why someone would jump off a cliff, unless you understand they we’re being chased by a tiger. That tiger is the Tea Party.”

The headline: “With Democrats Failing to Propose Plan for Cuts, Will Inslee (Larsen, Smith) Step Up?” (NBC’s poll story had the lead: “GOP Faces Risk of Political Backlash on Budget Cuts: Poll.”)

McInturff conducted the poll with a Democratic counterpart, Peter Hart. The poll contacted 1,000 adult Americans (200 by cell phone) in the last four days of February and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

The poll also had bad news for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and other Republican governors eager to take on public employee unions. A whopping 77 percent of those surveyed said public sector unions should have the same bargaining rights over such matters as pensions and health benefits as private sector unions.

It found President Obama with a 49-40 trial heat lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Willard “Mitt” Romney, and leading ex-Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty by a 50-31 margin.

The margin was much closer, at 45-40, when Obama was measured against a “generic” Republican opponent.